SEVEN MOVES ON AN ORDRULK BOARD, BY Adrian Simmons   1 The dead merchants, hung in the trees with their heads tied in their hands, nearly drove Muriq back from the Governor’s Forest. They had been there for a while, perhaps a little over a week. Flies swarmed around them and welled up from the […]

LETHE’S CUP AND THE WHITE SWORD, by Cullen Groves   Was in the green of spring, Love walked the land And bent her great black bow in mighty hand; Dost think her smooth of skin and fair of face? But she was born of that long ancient race, Those giants who defied the gods of […]

SHADOWS IN SAKAMURA, by Matthew Wuertz   The moon cast Tsukiko’s shadow as a larger figure than it should have been, both in height and girth. She walked along a simple road, wearing armor and carrying a naginata – a pole weapon fitted with a curved blade at one end. She carried the sheathed weapon […]

RACING THE HEADSMAN, by Andrew Knighton   Bullets hissed past Sir Henry Torrent’s head like a swarm of angry flies. Some hit the floating prison’s quay, knocking splintered holes through the planks. Others vanished into the darkness, lost between a starless sky and the endless sea. At this range, he feared only a little for […]

SPATHA STERCAE, by James Frederick William Rowe   Many thousands of years ago in deep antiquity, yet still after the age of the Gods, a giant came down from the Frima mountains to visit oppression upon the Veirans. A thing of hate, pride, and hunger, the giant made sport and meat of they who would […]